Hitachi designed the new Deskstar 7K1000.B with energy eficiency in mind, offering a 3,5-inch hard disk with a capacity of 375GB per platter, a total capacity of 1TB, spinning at 7,200 RPM.

The new three-disk design improves idle power consumption up to 43 percent over its 1TB predecessor, which was already among the industry?s most energy efficient hard drives. Increased protection against data loss and piracy is provided via Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) which is available as an optional feature to users.

Hitachi is also shipping the Deskstar E7K1000, designed to provide high-capacity storage for low-duty-cycle, 24x7 applications.

The new 7,200 RPM, 3.5-inch drives are available in a range of capacities from 160GB to 1TB. The drives are built using Hitachi?s patented perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) heads and disks, delivering a maximum of 375GB of storage per disk with a high level of reliability.

The low power characteristics of the Deskstar 7K1000.B hard drive contribute to a reduction in overall system power requirements, which helps PC manufacturers achieve ENERGY STAR ratings.

The Deskstar 7K1000.B also features optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) for hard drive-level data security. Previously, data on a hard drive could be protected either through software-based encryption or a system-level password. However, hard drive-level encryption provides improved performance and a higher level of security than any of the previously available options.

When employing bulk data encryption, data is scrambled using a key as it is being written to the disk and then descrambled with the key as it is retrieved. Thus, data encryption at the hard-drive level represents a more sophisticated approach of securing users? data and is generally considered to be virtually impenetrable. The Deskstar 7K1000.B uses an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) that has been certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to deliver the strongest commercially available data security protection.

Performance for the Enterprise

Hitachi also announced today the Deskstar E7K1000, a drive designed for business critical storage systems. The drives ship with a 32MB buffer, five-year warranty, 1.2 million hour Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) technology for robust performance in multi-drive environments. The Deskstar E7K1000 has the same low power characteristics and optional encryption technology as its desktop-class counterpart, but was specifically designed for use in nearline storage for deep data archival and other high density storage environments.

The new Deskstar drives feature a SATA 3Gb/s interface, which supports important features such as hot-swap capability for very high availability, Native Command Queuing (NCQ) for enhanced performance and staggered spin-up for power savings.

The Deskstar 7K1000.B and Deskstar E7K1000 will ship to customers worldwide in July.